So if you don't even want a hint of anything stop here. This is a five-star book so I recommend it 100%. It is not every novel that is able to comment on race, gender and personal identity, sexuality, misogyny, racism inherent in the American system, Well-intentioned but misguided radicalism, colonialism, religion, the state experimentations on people of color and do it all while telling a coming of age story of a teenage mother.īefore I get into why, let me say I went into this reading experience cold, based on the strength of the author.

I felt many things reading Sorrowland, I was moved by it and yet I feel from my position I have only seen the parts of the iceberg above water. It comes from such a fresh, thoughtful, and intensely unconformist place that I hesitate to imply that I understand it. It is all those things but at the core, it is the most radical of coming-of-age stories. Sorrowland is a radical novel, sure it is gothic, it is horror, science fiction, and fantasy. Anyone reading this novel can FEEL that this author writes their truth and has zero fucks to give if that is not for you. It is clear from the dust jacket cover that they were “Born on Turtle Island but currently resides on an isle in an Archipelago off the coast western coast of a continent.” This was not said to be cute, or to signal radical views it is clearly the author’s heart felt position. Solomon’s bio says they are a writer who writes about life in the margins. Sorrowland is a product of a writer who clearly decided they are writing the world as they envision.

As activists, we are taught to envision the world we wish to see, not the one forced on us daily. Solomon is a writer who creates deeply thoughtful fiction. The longer I thought about the book and the more distance I had from reading my respect for it grew. The Unkindness of Ghosts is a surreal masterpiece, it took this space nerd a little time to accept the unreality of that novel and once I did the universe of that novel opened up. It ended up having more in common with Butler’s Kindred than Heinlein’s Orphans in the Sky. On the surface, there is always some kind of easy commercial pitch, in the Unkindness of Ghosts it was a novel in the well-worn genre of Generation ships. They defy easy and typical genre definitions. This is my third Rivers Solomon novel and they have one very strong connection.

Sorrowland book review